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One-sided debate

March 7, 2009 7:42 amMarch 7, 2009 7:42 am

One major sin of news coverage, especially on TV, is the way certain points of view just get excluded from consideration — even if many of the best-informed people hold those views. Most famously and
disastrously, the case against invading Iraq was just not heard in the months before the war.

And still it happens. According to the invaluable Media Matters, the idea that the Obama stimulus plan might be too small — a view held by many well-known
economists — basically went unreported on broadcast news during the stimulus debate. Out of 59 broadcasts addressing the plan, only 3 mentioned concerns that the plan was inadequate. And it’s actually
even worse than that: one of those three involved Harry Reid talking about longer-term goals on health and education — and one of the other two was me.

This can also be applied to advocates of a single payer health care plan (which most Americans support). According to FAIR “the views of advocates of single payer have only been aired five times in the hundreds
of major newspaper, broadcasts and cable stories about healthcare reform over the past week. No single-payer advocate has appeared on a major TV broadcast or cable network to talk about the policy during that
period.”

Also Max Baucus said with health care reform “all options are on the table” EXCEPT for single payer, taking the unusual step of specifically ruling that out. Lastly at the President’s health
care summit, Obama refused to invite Rep John Conyers and Physicians for a National Health Program; both of whom advocate single payer, until they threatened to stage a protest outside the White House and finally
received invitations at the last minute. The insurance companies had no such problems getting in.

The simplistic answer to being too small. 1) They Dems didn’t want to give any ground over to GOP 2) They knew they had a lot of other plans to put forward and felt thay had a better shot of accomplishing
those goals by taking a modest approach. Sad on both counts.

On I smaller scale, I would note that a comment I posted to your post on depression economics //krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/return-of-depression-economics/ did not make it through moderation. It seemed to me to be an intriguing idea about how to easily pay for the stimulus and perhaps more of it if needed. Others noted that long term treasury rates are not zero,
but they are low. It seems to me then that we could save quite a lot on interest on the federal debt if we were to refinance that debt right now. If we buy treasuries that are outstanding with money that we
get by issuing lower interest treasuries then the money saved on interest can be put towards economic stimulus.

And one major sin of economics education and the public discourse of economics is the way certain points of view just get excluded from consideration. The perspective that work time reduction might be a key part
of a progressive economic recovery strategy — as Keynes pointed out, one of three ingredients of a cure and the ultimate solution — is not only excluded, it is ridiculed by economists as a lump
of labor fallacy. I’ve researched the alleged fallacy and I’ve found the claim to be fraudulent. The results of my research have been published in the Review of Social Economy as “Why Economists
Dislike a Lump of Labor”. I’ve even offered a $10,000 prize if someone could refute my rebuttal and get it published in a leading economics journal. No takers of course.

Meanwhile, Dean Baker has offered a policy proposal for reducing working time as part of an economic recovery package. Just listen to the spirited discussion among economists of Dean’s proposal! What’s
that you say? Silence? Oh.

The scorecards used by the media don’t measure quality journalism, only viewers and advertising dollars. I think the major sin is ours in that our need to be entertained is greater than our want to be informed.
Until the majority have an appetite for in-depth reporting and an attention span that brings revenue for producers we can’t expect MSM to change. Fox News has proven that reinforcing existing bias is
a money maker. CNBC’s success despite having been so wrong so often is further evidence of this.

Dear Mr. Krugman: Out here in the real world, more very small businesses than you might imagine are laying people off and then paying them the difference between their normal hourly and what they receive in
unemployment benefits in cash. This retains a valuable worker while jobs are scarce in light manufacturing , the trades, and the service industry to name but a few.

Lots of ways to skin a cat. Yet in my limited reading of the current economic scene, I have not seen any discussion or reporting on this ” grass roots stimulus plan”. What would your educated guess
be on how many across the country are doing this? 5%, 10%, more? Just asking.

I am a devoted follower of your commentary and analysis, and have been ever since doing MSW work at Fordham in the middle of this decade. However, I have heard nothing from you on the subject of uncollateralized
credit default swaps. These unregulated “bets” seem to be the reason why the losses are so much greater than the bad loans that precipated the current economic debacle; they seem to be why no amount
of bailout or stimulus money (including that thrown at AIG and the banks) has had any real effect so far. What is your analysis and opinion, Professor? Should uncollateralized credit default swaps simply be
annulled, as Ben Stein proposed last Fall? Why should insiders get paid for “insurance” on assets in which they had no ownership interest? And most importantly, if they do get paid, what is it
going to cost us taxpayers? (I have read figures up to $5 trillion.) Is this all alarmist concern based on misunderstandings, or is it yet another scheme on the part of the unregulated rich to loot us (like
the S&L bailout, althought the scale of this one makes that one look like lunch money)? Please help us out here — your expertise is trusted and needed. Thank you for your consideration.

As the comedian Lewis Black likes to point out, the other problem with TV news occurs when two sides of a debate are presented, even when one side isn’t credible. Talking heads are always presented with equal
gravitas, no matter how hackneyed their position.

Too small? That is the problem. We can not spend our way out of this. Let the market take care of it and give the people their money back and we will get out of this mess Obama has made along with other notable
politicians on both side.

The Congress just passed an $800 billion stimulus package that incidentally is four times the size of the stimulus packages being discussed in Europe and Japan ( as compared to GDP ). Just a few weeks later, President
Obama unveiled a budget for FY2010 that would increase this year’s already record deficit by 75% to $1.75 trillion. And yet you’re claiming that the views of yourself and other spendaholics is
somehow being ignored in the national debate?

There never has been a serious discussion of national Debt in the press as opposed to chicken-little they sky is falling when debt gets too high. The last time I looked private debt was a historic highs relative
to GDP, a fact never discussed. Also Americas dismal health statistics and wealth distribution, Neck and Neck with the Ivory Coast and Uruguay are not discussed publicly. I have ceased looking at the media myself
other than for events because both personal and documented problems (read Into the Buzzsaw to get some minimal account of the mechanism) suggests that most reporting in the media i.e. TV and a lot of the press
is near useless. It seems a la FDR the conclusion one might come to is the thing we have to fear most is rational discussion or so I would conclude from the Wasteland of TV coverage.

Once again, I agree that the plan is probably too small. That can be handled quickly with a follow-up because it will take some time to get such an enormous plan into effect. It is ony when you read through HR 1
in detail that you begin to see what you need to do to create 2 million jobs.

I also agree, however, emphatically that we sitll have enormous media bias, arguing one side and then arguing the counter side, but the rebuttal given often with the Right Wing talking points rather than the truth.

No one checks to find out, for example, whether there actually is a “train from Disneyland to Las Vegas” as it was described by the Right, in the stimulus bill. Once a lie is begun by someone on the
Right it is perpetuated because the media never does its homework to find out the truth. There is no journalism. Only second-hand knowledge, much of it wrong. It may be deliberate.

The “drive-bye” media comment that Rush Limbaugh uses to identify the media as LIberal is accurate. The problem is that it is “drive-bye” in favor of the Right. For example, Fox News
and people like Lou Dobbs on CNN deliberately distort the news. Even CNBC often slants its reporting to favor what might be called Wall Street interests.

But when countering with what had been a morning program that was somewhat objective, MSNBC added a Conservative host, Joe Scarborough, who is clearly and admittedly partisan.

I think the question is this: if the media is not being controlled by huge corporate interests deliberately expressing their views, why do we need Conservatives on the air, openly proclaiming their bias? Why does
a network have to add a Conservative to what are supposed to be objective news people in order to get its point-of-view across?

The answer may be that the Right Wing spin machine has approached the level of a national propaganda network. When they scream and shout and send letters the networks capitulate. That is one theory. The other, much
more serious is that the owners of these corporations are deliberately slanting the news, as they admittedly are already on Fox News.

We need a congressional investigation into the control of media. Personally, I think we need to break up this handful, literally, of national media conglomerates.

The whole idea was too small; it should have been (that dirty word) nationization, or if you don’t like that word perhaps taxpayers shares with voting rights: the government say that is until every cent is
accounted for and paid back in full.

Let me give you another current example; In the debate over the bankruptcy cramdown provision we hear about the “moral hazard” of modifying obligations, the long term damage to the sanctity of contracts
and the effect on mortgage interest rates.

Yet no one ever seems to comment that cramdown is available already, and always has been, in regard to every other asset one could own including mortgages on vacation homes, apartment complexes, office buildings,
boats, etc.. virtually everything EXCEPT a principle residence.

In addition, the same group screaming about the sanctity of contract, is equally vocal in urging the auto makers to file bankruptcy expressly so they can break their contractual commitments to Union workers and
retirees.

Fed Chairman Bernanke has said recently the Fed just doesn’t have the tools to address our current economic crisis and needs further powers from Congress, but in fact this is not quite true. I am reading
today, March 7th, in our local Express News real estate section that last fall the National Association of Realtors tried to persuade the Fed and Treasury to use the taxpayer billions to bring mortgage rates
down to around 4 percent. But the Fed and Treasury never endorsed the idea. Why not? This would lift all boats in the housing market which has been swamped with bad loans and is the epicenter of our deepening
crisis. It would provide help to mainstreet without moral hazard, to those who have been paying their mortgages and to those who need reduced payments to avoid foreclosure. Massive refinancings for qualiied
homeowners with actual paychecks would lower mortgage payments which would put more money into the economy for other needs. This low fair rate (about 1% above what grocery businesses make in profit) would apply
to all so there would be no moral hazard in taxpayers bailing out bad lenders and unqualified buyers. I lost my job a year and a half ago. With a four percent interest rate on our mortage for our home of 11
1/2 years, with my husband’s paycheck we could afford to also pay our property taxes with what we now pay for principal and interest. Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke and the new administration
of Barack Obama are not smarter than the National Board of Realtors when it comes to housing. What happened to “safe as houses?’ This is a national security issue. Make it easy for people to afford
their homes and return the country to prosperity and stability so that families are secure in their houses. Right now, even with massive infusions of money, the banks aren’t lending; it seems clear the
feds want morgage rates at around 5.5% and nothing is moving forward. But mortgage brokers and lenders say that their clients keep holding out for even lower rates. Isn’t it time for the Fed and Treasury
to endorse mortgage rates of about 4% which would revitalize the housing market and address the root causes of our ever-widening current dilemma? Please suggest this simple straightforward solution for homeowners,
lenders, and everyone in the economy the next time you appear on the Keith Oberman show, where I love to listen to your comments. In the 1950’s the country was governed to benefit returning soldiers
and the middle class ruled: mortgage rates were 4-5%, income tax deduction per child was $600 (about $9,000 in today’s dollars), Social Security taxes were 3%, interest on auto loans were deductible on
income taxes, millionaires were taxed at 90%. Ha! It’s now heresy to mention this fact. Eisenhower ruled well in war and peace, was loved by the common soldier, but left office warning the country about
the dangers of the expanded military-industrial complex. If the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs are already stockpiled with more weapons than they can use, doesn’t this put temptation in harm’s way
for starting unnecessay wars? Since then we have bungled two wars in countries which never attacked us and have been skewing fiscal policy, hence the economy, in favor of the wealthy elites instead of working
middle class families. 75% of people pay more in SS taxes than in income taxes as a result of Reagan’s policies of decreasing income taxes but increasing SS taxes to 15%; his policy of raising the
defense budget from about $120B to $350B drove the federal deficit to new highs. If the caps were removed from SS taxes and millionaires and billionaires acknowledged their American citizenship by paying taxes
for elder support at the same level of 15% as waitresses and cleaning ladies, there would be no problem with this program. (Assuming Congress doesn’t steal from the SS trust fund.) Tax breaks for multinational
companies who hire workers in other countries where the U.S. 15% SS tax doesn’t apply, need to be eliminated. Why can’t Nike hire Americans to make its shoes? If the annual deduction for children
were adjusted for inflation as SS payments are each year, there’s a fair chance the rate of abortions would go down when parents can keep their income for raising their children, rather than paying high
taxes to support a bloated military. If the defense budget were reduced– right now the air force is creating more problems for the army in Afghanistan by wantonly bombing civilians than it is solving–
the deficit would be significantly reduced. There needs to be a national concensus on war and the economy: we are either all in this together for winning the peace and leading prosperous lives, or we are
separate citizens as civilians and soldiers, rich and poor, thus divided we shall fail. Thousands of returning Vets are homeless. This is a tremendous moral hazard. Over 4,000 dead in Iraq, what’s wrong
with a 4% mortgage interest rate?

It might have a remote romantic flair to compare the current crisis to the Great Depression, but the economic disasters of the 1970’s when mortgage interest rates went as high as 22% under Carter, and the
Dow was below 1000 in the aftermath of a failed war effort have more bearing on our current situation. The economy was doing well in the 1960’s when we began our misadventure in Vietnam, just as George
Bush inherited a government in surplus following the balanced budgets of the Clinton years and felt confident, even arrogant, in leading us into the War in Iraq. Fed Chairman Bernanke has said recently the
Fed just doesn’t have the tools to address our current economic crisis and needs further powers from Congress, but in fact this is not quite true. I am reading today, March 7th, in our local Express News
real estate section that last fall the National Association of Realtors tried to persuade the Fed and Treasury to use the taxpayer billions to bring mortgage rates down to around 4 percent. But the Fed and Treasury
never endorsed the idea. Why not? This would lift all boats in the housing market which has been swamped with bad loans and is the epicenter of our deepening crisis. It would provide help to mainstreet without
moral hazard, to those who have been paying their mortgages and to those who need reduced payments to avoid foreclosure. Massive refinancings for qualiied homeowners with actual paychecks would lower mortgage
payments which would put more money into the economy for other needs. This low fair rate (about 1% above what grocery businesses make in profit) would apply to all so there would be no moral hazard in taxpayers
bailing out bad lenders and unqualified buyers. Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke and the new administration of Barack Obama are not smarter than the National Board of Realtors when it comes to housing.
What happened to “safe as houses?’ This is a national security issue. Make it easy for people to afford their homes and return the country to prosperity and stability so that families are secure
in their houses. Right now, even with massive infusions of money, the banks aren’t lending; it seems clear the feds want morgage rates at around 5.5% and nothing is moving forward. But mortgage brokers
and lenders say that their clients keep holding out for even lower rates. Isn’t it time for the Fed and Treasury to endorse mortgage rates of about 4% which would revitalize the housing market and address
the root causes of our ever-widening current dilemma? Please suggest this simple straightforward solution for homeowners, lenders, and everyone in the economy the next time you appear on the Keith Oberman
show, where I love to listen to your comments. There needs to be a national concensus on war and the economy: we are either all in this together for winning the peace and leading prosperous lives, or we
are separate citizens as civilians and soldiers, rich and poor, thus divided we shall fail. Thousands of returning Vets are homeless. This is a tremendous moral hazard. Over 4,000 dead in Iraq, what’s
wrong with a 4% mortgage interest rate?

Paul, Eric Holder, last month, described a form of cowardice (which may have required better articulation) with the American people, that seems to ring true with the instances that you bring up. He specifically
tagged it to racism, but I think it is fair to say that it reaches a broad spectrum of issues. It is the lack of communicating what is incredibly obvious for fear of criticism from a particular group or groups
for reasons that may be real or misrepresented. In simple terms, the critique over Iraq would have gone up against a sense of patriotism or that the country had the need to feel vindicated. A wave of emotion
so to speak. It takes a significant amount of courage to speak up , when you know you will suffer the wrath of the many special interest groups out there, or it goes against the emotional stream of thought at
the time. We need more of that courage. I think you find that courage on street level, but as you move higher up into political office (News networks need the approval of people also) the heart and soul is weak.

Yes, I see many similarities to the Iraq war. Congress passed all this money for the stimulus and now the budget, with very little debate or discussion. Same with the Iraq war. This administration has an agenda
they are not telling us about just as Bush did. Obama is using the economy to pass his socialist agenda just as Bush used 9/11 to pass his war agenda. In both cases the American public gets screwed. I have lost
my faith in the presidency and the congress. We have been lied to, way too much. The ends never justify the means. Many Americans are not as stupid as officials seem to think. A PHD from California and Texas.

The only good thing broadcast media has done lately is when Jim Cramer this week hi-lited how many companies have been propping up their stock prices (and then the insiders selling their own stock) through massive
buy-back programs instead of paying out dividends – I believe he was focusing on HMOs. Besides the questions of fiduciary responsibility to the share-holders and blatant conflicts of interest, one wonders
if unjust enrichment might come into play.

The media has been victim of its news-writers, who suddenly believe deficits are an issue, failing to remember that at the end of WWII, the national debt was 120% of GDP, which would be about $16 trillion today.
The way we know the media is biased is because these same people were AWOL when it came to the issue of doubling the national debt between 20001-2008. Looks like we will have to choose between Bush-villes, CNN-villes,
CNBC-villes, Kudzu-villes, Rantelli-villes, or Cheney-villes.

Totally agree, especially on education. Several of my son’s friends are unable to afford classes right now, even at community college — when they can even get into college classes, which in California
have suffered terribly with budget cuts.

These kids have no jobs, 10.1 per cent unemployment in CA, even worse among the 20 somethings who often don’t apply for unemployment at all or have never even been employed, and now, little prospect of going
to school.

Something is seriously, seriously wrong here, and our Republican obstructionist legislators and governor really don’t seem to care. I hope we get some help soon.

But as you yourself know, there is another, equally insidious practice: the “opinions differ on shape of earth”mentality. Interesting how this journalistic tic is used exclusively to shoehorn crackpot
rightwing views into a debate, while progressive views get the treatment you cite here. Heads I win, tails you lose.

Broadcast journalism, with few exceptions, likes to latch on to easy to comprehend pro-con issues, with only two sides to every debate.

In this case, it’s the Obama/Dems vs. the obstructionist Republicans.

Amy Goodman’s “Democray Now!,” Keith Olberman’s “Countdown,” and “The Rachel Maddow Show” are the only broadcasts on which I expect to hear anything approaching
a wider view, and the latter two also tend toward them-us journalism — albeit from the Moderate Left.